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wordsofclover 's review for:
The Ten Thousand Doors of January
by Alix E. Harrow
3.5 stars
I received this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
January Schaller is a rather lonely little girl who loves to explore her guardian's large house while waiting for her father to come home from his worldly adventures. January's life changes when one day she finds a door, and discovers that there are secret pathways to different worlds. But her discovery soon turns to a life and death journey as a terrible society determined to destroy the doors come after January and everything she holds dear.
This book is a really weird, yet lovely, mix between Every Heart a Doorway, the Chronicles of Narnia and the doors from Monsters Inc. I really wanted to love it, and there were parts of it I definitely did. I also am not 100% sure what age range this book falls into, I thought YA at first but there were parts that read more adult.
The writing in this was definitely really good, and I definitely felt like Alix E Harrow knew the world she was writing, and she knew her characters. I loved that January was a biracial character, and though she grew up in luxury she was not immune to the treatment she received sometimes just because of her skin colour. And I appreciated that she saw the other side of the class divide as well when she was journeying without her riches and the protection of Mr Locke.
I'm not sure what it was with me with this book, but it took me a lot longer than I thought for me to really start getting into the story and feeling anyway a connection with any of the characters. It even, shock, gasp, horror, took me a while to love Bad! The dog!
I really wish we saw a bit more of some of the side characters in this book - Samuel and particularly Jane were both interesting but I felt they were at times, forgotten about. I loved Jane's story and would honestly love a novella or even a novel just about her and her land of leopard women, so cool. January's parents were both the tropey sad, slightly pathetic figures and I honestly didn't much care for them that much.
When it came to January reading the story, I kept finding myself really uninterested in it. Obviously everything comes together eventually, and I saw why the story was so important but it just took a while to get there - which seemed to be the theme of this book. I felt like everything only started to really happen about 70% in.
I really loved the ideas in this book, and the magic of the doors. The story itself just took too long to get going for me, and I felt like there was too much build up before any actual action.
I received this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
January Schaller is a rather lonely little girl who loves to explore her guardian's large house while waiting for her father to come home from his worldly adventures. January's life changes when one day she finds a door, and discovers that there are secret pathways to different worlds. But her discovery soon turns to a life and death journey as a terrible society determined to destroy the doors come after January and everything she holds dear.
This book is a really weird, yet lovely, mix between Every Heart a Doorway, the Chronicles of Narnia and the doors from Monsters Inc. I really wanted to love it, and there were parts of it I definitely did. I also am not 100% sure what age range this book falls into, I thought YA at first but there were parts that read more adult.
The writing in this was definitely really good, and I definitely felt like Alix E Harrow knew the world she was writing, and she knew her characters. I loved that January was a biracial character, and though she grew up in luxury she was not immune to the treatment she received sometimes just because of her skin colour. And I appreciated that she saw the other side of the class divide as well when she was journeying without her riches and the protection of Mr Locke.
I'm not sure what it was with me with this book, but it took me a lot longer than I thought for me to really start getting into the story and feeling anyway a connection with any of the characters. It even, shock, gasp, horror, took me a while to love Bad! The dog!
I really wish we saw a bit more of some of the side characters in this book - Samuel and particularly Jane were both interesting but I felt they were at times, forgotten about. I loved Jane's story and would honestly love a novella or even a novel just about her and her land of leopard women, so cool. January's parents were both the tropey sad, slightly pathetic figures and I honestly didn't much care for them that much.
When it came to January reading the story, I kept finding myself really uninterested in it. Obviously everything comes together eventually, and I saw why the story was so important but it just took a while to get there - which seemed to be the theme of this book. I felt like everything only started to really happen about 70% in.
I really loved the ideas in this book, and the magic of the doors. The story itself just took too long to get going for me, and I felt like there was too much build up before any actual action.